Iran says n-meet with EU 'fruitful'

) A senior Iranian official has said the meeting between the Iranian foreign minister and his European Union (EU) counterpart in Istanbul was "fruitful in advancing nuclear talks", media reported Wednesday.

"The talks were very fruitful and it led to a better understanding pertaining to the advancement of nuclear talks," Xinhua cited the official IRNA news agency as quoting Abbas Araqchi, Iran's senior nuclear negotiator, while referring to the meeting between Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.

Araqchi's remarks were reported in an IRNA dispatch from Algiers, where an Iranian delegation was participating in the 17th Ministerial Meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement.

Araqchi said the two-day Istanbul talks, which concluded Tuesday, focused mainly on the ways of conducting the next round of nuclear talks with the P5+1 group, namely Britain, China, France, Russia, the US plus Germany.

Before the next round of talks, an expert-level nuclear meeting and another meeting between Ashton and Zarif is likely, he added.

The last round of Iranian nuclear talks ended in Vienna May 16 without any deal being reached.

Western countries accuse Iran of secretly developing nuclear weapons and demand that Iran significantly scale back its nuclear programme and subject it to more transparency.

Tehran says that it has the right to develop its nuclear programme under the Non-Proliferation Treaty and that its nuclear activities are for peaceful purposes only.

The next round of talks is scheduled for June 16-20 in Vienna.